


Ghosts on these roads

by justnightvalethings



Category: Alice Isn't Dead (Podcast)
Genre: Alice Isn't Dead - Freeform, F/F, horror (kinda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 11:38:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justnightvalethings/pseuds/justnightvalethings
Summary: "But, there are ghosts on these roads and she's looking for one in particular. "





	Ghosts on these roads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SophiaCatherine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/gifts).



> Thank you @SophiaCatherine this is for you! I had such a blast. I ended up looking into the history of Oregon and hauntings because of your prompt. I really, really, hope you like it.
> 
> Thank you so much to kkorny & LiterallyThePresident for your beta skills and support. I adore you guys!

There's ghosts on these roads, they'd said.

Ghosts. Sure, every road has ghosts. Every single road Keisha's ever come across has had ghosts because this country is old, huge, and messed up. The kind of ghost it is though - that changes. Sometimes that Ghost is the past - a town killed by collapsing industry, a bypass, empty houses, or empty fields. Sometimes that Ghost is the future - sprawling glass towers which are, for now, just metal outlines or towering cranes in the sky, dinosaurs made of machines and metal. Occasionally that Ghost is other people - cars just out of sightline and things we don't want to look at, don't want to see. Rarely though, are those Ghosts physical and staring at you with a vacant expression.

"Well, hell" she mutters looking up at the hill. These rolling hills aren't anything new because it’s something this country has a lot of. But this one is special. She keeps her eyes on the road, and squinting in the glare, tries to take it all in. It’s not that this area Malheur Butte is big, it's just a lump of reddish-brown rock that cuts across the skyline, smaller than most buildings. It's that it's old, older than the rest of this region. Definitely older than humans, and their need for expansion, have been alive. 

There's are ghosts on these roads, they'd said, because of Malheur.

It's the sort of random rumours she always hears wherever she goes on these back roads, but this? This, she can believe could have some kind of mystical energy but witches? Sure, there were the stories. Witches. Nothing more than men being afraid of strong women that wouldn’t back down and for them the only possible reason was wait for it… magic. And, she’d seen enough late night tv on the road to know that it was caused by contaminated grain that caused hallucinations among other things. She's seen a lot of shit but never witches. Oracles, sure, there are oracles on these roads. She's seen them. But never witches.

It was a sunny day in the desert and any other cars that might’ve been around, fled the midday heat. The truck stops and she gets out at the side of the road. The river, that runs by it, and throughout time has carved little grooves into the sides of the bank. On a little sign by the side of the road, it calls it the Hagrisi River. The letters are started to fade so it reads “Hag_s River”. The road is tiny, barely able to fit her truck, certainly not built for it. She looks down the road, both ways, and there's still nothing. Because if anything comes she's gonna have to move the truck. It’s completely silent besides the low gurgling of the slow moving river beside her and soft whistling desert wind. 

Isn't there something about water and witches? She remembers something about that. Or was that vampires? She looks down at her silver watch. And she's behind schedule after getting held up in Idaho delivering some ticking crates, and if she keeps standing here she's never gonna make the time up. She was probably never gonna make it up anyway even if she hadn’t stopped. She sighs.

But, there are ghosts on these roads and she's looking for one in particular. That's why she took this detour instead of going straight to her next delivery. She crosses the road, stands at the side of it, looks up. The grass crunches under her feet, brown and dying, the green giving way to the hill. She gets the urge, sharp, instant, almost like an overwhelming sensation, to try and climb it. To dump her bag and start scrambling upward, up and up, right to the top of the hill, look around, and scream, like an eagle, at the sky.

Keisha snaps back to reality and plays with the wedding ring on her finger, the cool metal soothing on her skin. They’d gone hiking before Alice – went, yeah, went. Went is a good word. She had gotten sore feet about an hour in and Alice had just chuckled. Alice had warned her about the shoes, which were old, but she wouldn’t listen. Once they’d arrived at their picnic spot, they’d eaten their lunch, turkey sandwiches and crisps. She doesn't remember where it was, what the place even looked like, but the sun in Alice’s hair was so vivid seeming to glitter in the sunlight. 

She looks up at the mountain again and turns to check the road. She can’t hear anything coming so she’s got at least a few more minutes. There’s a sharp splash of red to her left, she turns, but there’s nothing. A breath of a cold breeze, and then nothing. She takes one last look at Malheur and heads back across the road to her truck.

She climbs in, eases into the driver's seat, checks her mirrors and starts it up. “Well, Alice” She mutters to herself as she checks the mirrors, “this is us.” She’s just about to pull out when “-shit!” she yells.

There’s a woman, in the road, in a red scarf and black dress. She had bought that scarf on their honeymoon in Toronto and fuck, fuck, it’s not just any random woman. It is Alice. It’s fucking Alice. It’s her wife.

There's ghosts on these roads, they say, because of Malheur.

She shakingly turns off the engine, and sits. Sits and waits. But the women – Alice? - doesn't move. She just stands there, in the road, waiting. She’s facing the setting sun, impossibly staring without blinking or squinting, casting a shadow behind her. In a blur, she’s suddenly facing towards the truck not caring about the road, about anything. Just staring. She doesn’t look like a ghost though, she looks real and tangible, and alive. 

Keisha unbuckles her seatbelt and gets out the truck. Her legs feel odd like they can’t hold her weight, but she wobbles herself forward anyway. Forces herself to walk. She counts in her head 1, 2, 1, 2 and breathes with it, tries to keep herself moving, fighting the fluttering in her stomach. Like Alice had taught her to do, just after they’d met.

Alice, she’s known – suspected – known that Alice isn’t dead for a long time. Seen her in news reports, in pictures online, like a symbols that won’t leave her alone. A call to visit all the absurd places in this insane damn country. But what the hell is she supposed to say to Alice? What do you say to your missing wife? And, sure, she’s practiced it through the recordings, worked it out, tightened it up. She’s got lines because she’s always needed lines, but the words abandon her and it’s just Alice. “Alice.” She says, “It’s me.”

Alice tilts her head, smiles, but the way she smiles is wrong. Alice has never smiled like that, it’s wrong, fucking wrong. It takes a second for her to realise that it’s because the smile is too large, almost painfully so, too big for her face. Her fists tighten instinctively and she takes a step back.

It’s not just that Alice has never smiled like that – no one has ever smiled like that. “You’re not her.”

And the tension drops from her shoulders, and she hauls in a breath, not sure what to do. 

Alice’s smile drops, just a fraction, but there’s still enough there to make her look abnormal. She doesn't speak, just tilts her head a sickening amount. When the smile relaxes more she can see the stitch marks, running around the side of Alice’s mouth, sharp and red. Tiny needle marks into her flesh, outlining her mouth. She’s the right height, right build, but that smile.

“Do you – are you.” And she breathes, forces herself to get the words out “Do you work for Thistle?” 

And this thing, this “Alice”, doesn't look like one of the thistle-men. She’s wrong but she walks properly, has proper weight, a sharpness in the eyes that the Thistle-men lack. Her face shifts and, well, the thing might be laughing. Might actually be laughing at her. 

Not Thistle, then. Or at least, probably not. “What do you want?” She breathes, “I mean, now.” Because that’s a big question to ask someone you’ve just met. But she’s learning, has learned, quickly that everyone she meets on these roads wants something. Needs something, because they are all haunted, literally, metaphorically in every other way possible. They are all searching and if this thing, this Alice, isn’t a Thistle-man then it might be someone she trust. Or at least someone who can help, who she can help.

The thing doesn't answer, just tilts its head again, a gesture that looks weird on Alice who was more likely to scrunch up her face, than tilt her head. Alice. “Have you seen my wife? Is that why you’re here?” A pause, while she thinks, and she realizes. “She was just here.”

She’s had this before, the ghost of Alice out on the side of her eye, the feeling that Alice has just walked out of somewhere she’s just gone into. It’s picked up recently, this feeling, every truck stop now almost, but she now knows she’s being followed. She’s so, so, close and Alice is just out of frame.

The fake Alice’s eyes change, something in the colour, and it nods. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, but it nods.

“Can you take me to her?” She asks and the thing, the Alice, shakes its head.

It steps forward then, into her space, watches her closely. And her heart starts to go because it bends down, just slightly, and kisses her gently. It’s quick, chaste, just a touch of the lips but the cold spreads through her entire body. She tenses, steps back, and the thing, the Alice steps away. She can feel the brush of its skin on her lips, chapped and dry, and she’s just about to - 

And then it starts to gasp for air, it’s mouth is open wide, the stitches torn at the side of its face ragged, and red, and awful like a bloody ribbon. And it’s colour, starts to change and becomes less pale. It turns to her, doesn't move forward, and opens its mouth, tries to speak. “T-ha-nk yo-u” It forces out, voice harsh, rasping, and quiet. “Thank you.”

The only reason she can hear it is because they’re here. “What are you?”

It shrugs. “I live on this road, lived here before this was a road. I don’t know how long.”

She nods, before all of this shit, before Thistle, she wouldn’t have bought it. But she’s seen the oracles, been inside Diners that can’t possibly be real. Seen things. “Are you a ghost?”

It looks at her then looks through her. “I was alive once, I think, but I also do not think I am dead.”

It turns from her, starts to walk, up the hill and she doesn't. Fuck, she doesn't know if she should follow it or just let it go. She waits, watches it climb and swears under her breath, and starts running to catch up. It stops halfway up, turns to her, expectant. And she doesn't know what it’s expecting her to do. “There are bones here.” It says, “Bones under the hill. Bones everywhere. Some of them are mine.” A pause. “I want to leave.”

She looks down, at the ground, knows the stories about this place. That they burned witches here, that there are things or people that haunt it, things that won't go away. “Do you – do you want me to do something?” And she knows, knows what it’s like, to not be able to let go. To not be able to let go and to just, just haunt a place, because there’s nothing else for it. The flat she had shared with Alice, curled up on the couch, facing the door, waiting. Just. Waiting for her to come home. And then every day a sinking feeling, worse and worse, because she’s not. She’s not. “Do you want me to let you go?”

The thing – the ghost – nods. “Yes.”

And she sits then, on the ground, bones under her, bones everywhere. Stretches out a hand so she can touch it, so she can feel the earth beneath her, landscape stretched out as far as she can see but not another human. Just red, and grey, and sky. “What happened to you?” She asks, and the ghost talks.

She doesn't remember all of it, doesn't have to, but she listens. She listens and it doesn't know the story fully either, can’t remember, so many details lost to the earth, and the sky, and the roads. The ghost had been a woman once by the name of Deirdre, and she’d been killed, burned here, sacrificed to the land. And she wants to go. It tilts its head at her. “You shouldn’t chase something that runs,” it tells her and she smiles, then.

“Well, sometimes you’ve got no choice. Sometimes that thing just won’t leave you alone.”

And it’s true, Keisha feels it, deep in her own bones. That sometimes you just have to. And Alice, oh Alice, has left so many breadcrumbs behind her, has left so many different ways to be found. She’s not ready to let go of Alice, not yet (might never be). “Sometimes you’ve just gotta find it.” A pause then, “Or be found yourself.”

She looks at the entity formerly known as Deirdre then, looks at it, the empty sky sharp behind it. She knows it’s story now, as much as it knows, as much as it can remember, and she wonders if that’s part of letting go. “You can go,” She says, softly, “If you want to.”

It reaches out then, side of its face all red, and sharp, and it tries to touch her face. But it can’t, it seems to scrape her face, slightly, cold and air and then nothing. Nothing at all. She’s standing on Malheur Butte alone. And she tries not to laugh, because well if that’s not what life truly is, a person who leaves you not just physically but with a sense of longing to return to. Who knows what it is?

There's ghosts on these roads, they'd said, because of Malheur.

She gets in her van, looks at the road, and her phone goes. It’s a news event, a few towns over, and Alice is in the picture, front row, looking out at her. 

And yes, it does, the roads have ghosts. Because sometimes life just won’t let up, won’t leave you alone. And sometimes, sometimes, you gotta haunt the hell out of those ghosts. 

She starts the engine, and she drives off, leaving the sadness of Malheur and her own sadness, in the dust.


End file.
